001I reconvene in the open session of the regular meeting here in District 72 Board of Education February 19th, 2026 at 7:02 p.m. We have already established that we have a forum. I'd like to request that all members of the public be respectful and please silence your cell phones and join us for the pledge. All right, we're start meeting of January 21st, 2026. May I have a motion and a second to approve the minutes of January 21st, 2026? Absolutely. >> All those in favor of approving the minutes of January 21st, 2022, say I. I. Anybody? Say next item is approve of payments and bills. And I have a motion and a second to approve the payment of bill 28,456. Anybody have questions? >> Secretary. >> Yes. >> Next up, it's teacher association report to provide reports.
002Good evening. It's um quiet and kind of slow. We just finished our Valentine's Day classroom parts. Um I unfortunately I'm not there but I did see some great job seeing gear and crafts. So a hug volunteer in the classrooms. Um, our next big event is March 25th, which is multicultural night. Um, that's going to be a fun event that we love to host for the community. And then our next general did. Um, next item is report. Does anyone from the administration have good news to share from the district? Hello everyone. Just a couple quick things. First, I just want to continue to thank the board for allowing us to uh explore different field trips. Um, recently our eighth grade uh team took eighth graders to the first division museum in Ky Park. Um, so it's
003a uh it's a museum that celebrates our our veterans of first division military and incredible experience. It's a little bit of wing away, but said that they want to continue to make it like a stable 15th grade. Also want to give a shout out to uh Mr. Shedros specifically, but our math team, math department had students participate in a live math contest at the school in the city and not many public schools participate and fair middle school students did really well there. We had two third place finishes and a fourth and a fifth against some of the more private prestigious schools in the city of Chicago. That was great. Uh and then this Saturday, I know Mr. timer will be at solo ensemble. So we have students participating in the solar ensemble contest um at
004street noles not street school um and horse band students as well as some students are playing piano. There's a lot of great stuff going on for sources. >> I'm excited to report that our preschool applications are working on our website as Friday 13 and as of this morning 21 applicants. So, it's really exciting both returning and new. So, all on their way, which is great. Um, our current preschoolers are in the new unit of exercise. So, they're learning muscles and how to stay healthy. Um, which is really fun. Um, the teachers also updated the dramatic play area um for Valentine's Day. We turned it into a card and flower shop. Um, so they kind of updated every once in a while to map to Stevens and really exciting area for the kids to explore. Um
005and then last week last week we had our Xbox meeting and I talked a little bit about um the upcoming finance that we had earlier going on this spring. We're not sure exactly where it is. Okay. Um but my guest is margin. Um and so we talked a little bit about how we will be looking at our program. um the tools that they would be using, one in which the program in its entirety and then the other classroom in the teachings at the primary similar to Ela we had um some field trips. We have one and we have one coming up. So our kindergarten students, they were supposed to go to K's Children's Museum on the cold day that we had involved learning. So we rescheduled that. They went last Friday. So that was very
006exciting for them. And then our first graders are going to be going um in the end beginning of March to the Chicago Children's Museum. So, we do definitely love taking our children out exploring some of the wonderful museums and opportunities that we have in the Chicago area. And if you did not know, last week was a very big week in in primary especially, we had the 100th day of school that was uh on the 9th on that Monday. And then um we also had two concerts. Our second grade students and our third grade students together concerts with Mr. Clif and they did an amazing job. It's always so impressive to see how much they learn from one year to the next, including like transitions, right? When they're little, they just kind of stay on the
007stage and you just want them to stay insane and look adorable. And then they start to learn how to play instruments and, you know, use more of their voice as an instrument and also actual instrument. So, Mr. Clip does an amazing job. And then also, similar to preschool, kindergarten registration is open. We're not at 20, but we are in double digits. So, that's great. And um actually I I was really excited because I was flying along with a couple of our kindergarten teachers, we made an Instagram post welcoming the the kindergarters saying registration's open. So if you haven't seen it, please like it so that we can get more views. And then if you know anyone who has a kindergarten age student for next year, please encourage them to register so that we can have
008an accurate count on how many kindergarters we have. But it turned out absolutely. So you should check it out. on Instagram. And then finally, um we tomorrow throughout the whole entire building, we have our third K8ness connecting this activity. Um tomorrow they were they're going to be working with their funies for the birthday party project which is making it's it's um it's a nonprofit organization that helps uh make experiences for those students who are experiencing homelessness to bring some joint to them. And so they're going to be recording videos, happy birthday like videos. they have a whole like plan that they have to create. Um, but I think it'll be really fun for them to work together to be able to do that along with other things. I just really like being advice and if
009we can bring some joy and kindness to those students or children in our in our community that might be experiencing homelessness, that's just great. So, lot happening. Any questions? Sorry, my robotics where we took first place, but it's most neat to see lots of high and uh lot of celebrations going on. So, it's great, you know, one. It was Valentine's Day and concerts by the end of the week. But I wanted to share with you that um I have many teachers. We're so grateful. This is really so much called the calendar committee. But you know it's important and they're the ones who are doing all our teachers and they dress up ladies and So I just wanted to share it amazing to watch him outside of the song lyrics and and just all the things
010that he did, but it was really incredible and it showed work that is a big shout out to it of the superintendent. But there are Sure. >> Yeah, sure. Look at school fees. We look at the band districts and other forable uh things too. Um right now when we looked at the fees we we saw slight increases here in graduation fees. Graduation fees encompasses a number of different items that we purchase. We've never looked at most of these things as a money in money out type things. We're taking a loss on all these. We're not looking to make breaking the banks of our our families or community. So we're looking at a $5 recently graduation fee here which has been increased for a couple years. um Chromebook fees and the tech breakage fees were established
011in conjunction with Mr. based on trends that we're seeing around the building with tech usage also current prices crisis and there's some things that we are looking at as well as we don't have a case anymore we're not going to replacement charter cost anymore um the other thing here is that we are still waiting for a year-to-year basis the outdoor education cost based on who's going based on what we're what activities we're doing there uh and the primary class fee will be going up from $4 to $50 in grades three through four kindergarten to second go 30 to 40 And again, this is all promising for field trips or uh subscriptions in the classroom. We decided to make this change quite a while ago now. So, we're not asking parents for money consistently, even though
012we have push money, which would make a little easier, but to have those fees up front repeated in years. So, we're not consistently doing that for families. We've always felt it was a it's been a good move for us. So, we haven't had those fees go up in at least seven years. So, we're moving those on. That's about it right now. Everything else is holding firm. Yeah. So, typically what we've done is anyone that qualifies for free lunch, we also we always pay fees. Anyone that doesn't qualify for free use lunch, they can submit a fee waiver for specific fees to the district office and we'll consider it based on level. Um we've been typically very generous with generous fees and it was a while maybe 10 11 years. Then we decided to make that
013change where if you follow we would automatically wait. It used to you got to do the paperwork for that too. But it seemed silly and it seemed like double work. It seemed like people that were turning those reforms in larely were the free lunchies. It was nice. that situationally typally whatever consider It's been nice over the last few years because we haven't gotten many fems into the district office which reduces the paperwork but it probably means that reducing families are not going to wait to fill a lot more paperwork than they were before. So that's super. So that is all student responsibilities. He's also a lot of conversations about looking at how sections etc changes. So those are other things we're working on. So our efforts were like I said somewhat successful. Um there are
014So the portion of Florida. So we will keep it issue going. So that Sunday One day unfortunately we were so No. But you know about its children. She has All right. Next item is any last two. currently is doing a heavy lift for the preschool for so the opportunity for students to attend our school for recruiting um which I was super grateful for um and it is clear as you can imagine detail and it requires a lot and being the first time and opportunity to make sure she's done. Um, it's also a good testament to how incredible this program is. Um and based on our staff for all of the terms and like now where we are just short time has also approached me of the program um and you know loving that can sort
015of way. Um, so I say all this to say thank you for all that you do. to support you with the audit as a response um and equally um detailed presentation was provided by on the um potential to adopt Chromebooks versus MacBooks um and various factors into that put together every single detail as every single question that we have. um and his recommendations that we're applying to and um will help support him in his ability to support teachers um right now that have um what's really nice that has done is initiated a pilot program with some teachers for feedback and I thought that was really important that some of the teachers already have some of their technology test out um the case um so that we can just um that was most of the conversation
016I think it took most of the time but again you know for everybody any additional information. Um the next item is freedom of information act that there were three freedom of information acts received since the last board meeting and that it was responded to as required. We currently do not have any information items correspondence for this month. Um, at this time I'd like to invite members of the audience to address the board of public comment. Public comment period is present beginning in the public for the board to the question presented. If you wish to address the board, please come to the microphone and state your name. Every minute time for board secretary as well. >> Okay, we are going to our action items. We'll start with um the first one. We have a motion and
017a second to approve outdoor education and camp temporarily. Secretary. >> Yes. Yes. >> Yes. Yes. >> Next up, we have a motion and a second to approve the principal contract 2029. >> So, the board proceed with yes. >> All right, we have a motion second to adopt a resolution calling on local county treasure county officials responsible for additional property tax bills to resolve the seven issues. Jeff >> can't do that. Sorry. to add on what I'm talking about with crowd text. So over the course last four to five months there's been an active group of superintendents and CSOS who have banded together to fight tried to fight what's been going on with the property tax uh with the county treasurer and also their new technology rolled out that's really affect our taxes which I talk
018about this point. We still haven't received all of our taxes in the last year. So, it's it's pretty crazy at this point. We've received a good deal, but not depending on our cashless time. But in I think Cindy and I kind of thought about whether or not this resolution is really doing anything toward an end. But what we're trying to do here by approving it tonight is just just to add to the effort of all the other districts together to try and prevent this from happening in the future. and also if there's anything down the line that would happen in the way of litigation regarding lost interest that we from our government that could have happened during that time period. Um basically trying to have them tighten up the money that they used in how
019they give the tax dollars to districts. We are so relying on property tax dollars that this delay was crushing to some districts who don't have fund balance that we did. Now our fun was there points there are like don't feel as comfortable as I once did, but thankfully we're in a financial situation, but this will hopefully go toward adding the effort with the other districts in the county and adding our voice to the to the group and preventing from happening in the future. Yes. >> Secretary, please. made a motion and a second to accept the resation certif Zach Robert. So >> questions. Um, it's just a wonderful feeling. Um, you know, people have a motion and a second to approve the dismissal of support for NASA. secretary is thank you guys. Anyone have any future
020considerations motion second to journ the regular meeting of the view board of education. It is now 7:3. Thank you.